The trade embargo, not the naval blockade. The trade embargo that the UN General Assembly has called illegal multiple times. Like how ships docking into US ports can’t trade with Cuba, or businesses trading with Cuba have to go through massive paperwork hoops to prove that they have zero American shareholders. Or like how Cuba has to import basic medical supplies from the other end of the world.
The embargo has been active since 1960 and has never ended, I’m not sure where you got the idea that it had stopped. And yeah, while it doesn’t directly prevent anyone else from trading with Cuba, it does prohibit anyone who trades with Cuba (or even just enters a Cuban port for maintenance) from trading with the US for the next 180 days, and considering the US is such a major trading partner, that heavily disincentivizes other nations from trading with them, don’t you think?
Either way it’s petty as hell and absolutely still happening, it infringes on Cuba’s right to self determination, and is not what I would call “generally pretty serious about enforcing freedom of navigation” by any stretch of the imagination.
Its amusing how this thread went from the legitimacy of various naval exercises and then shifted to trade policy when that didn’t pan out, which is an entirely different animal, its more of an elephant than a zebra. (It ain’t black and white, definitely grey.)
Trying to get me to defend the Cuba trade embargo ain’t gonna happen, because it really is pointless and harmful. But I like how its conveniently ignored that the rest of the world could easily more than cover what the US refuses to send to Cuba. The US Navy wouldn’t stop them from doing so, because the blockade ended decades ago.
But oddly enough, that doesn’t happen. I wonder why not? Because, oh no, what would the world do without more of those sweet, sweet dollars??? Yeah, never mind the ethics, one can’t forgo profits from trade with the US, so let’s go fuck the Cubans right along with the Americans, and keep our citizens fat and happy with a steady supply of Levis, Big Macs, and movies. But, you know, lets continue paying lip service to how bad it is while making money hand over fist in complicity.
A truly astounding amount of hypocrisy. The US has plenty of hypocrisy to go around too, but at least I am not going to try to defend it.
In short, the US embargo impacts every aspect of life on the island – and that is the precisely the point. Sixty years ago on this day, President John F Kennedy introduced Proclamation 3447, Embargo on All Trade with Cuba, designed to isolate Cuba and stop the spread of so-called Sino-Soviet Communism “Every possible means should be undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of Cuba,” the assistant secretary of state, Lester D Mallory, wrote in an April 1960 memo. The goal of the Kennedy administration was clear: “To bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government.”
Today, Joe Biden lives up to Kennedy’s legacy and the ambitions of his Cuban embargo. Not only has the president refused to undo the extraordinary sanctions imposed by the Trump administration, reneging on his campaign promise to restore diplomatic relations and leaving Cuba on the list of “state sponsors of terrorism”. He has also doubled down on the embargo, tightening restrictions and imposing a host of new sanctions against the Cuban government.
Both the Biden administration and its Republican opposition claim that these measures are targeted at the regime, rather than the Cuban people. But the evidence to the contrary is not only anecdotal. The UN estimates that the embargo has cost Cuba over $130bn in damages – costs that are compounded by the penalties imposed by the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) on Cuba’s allies and investors. Between April 2019 and March 2020 alone, OFAC penalties amounted to over $2.4bn, targeting banks, insurance firms, energy companies and travel agencies alike.
The effect of the embargo is therefore both local and global: it cripples the Cuban economy and undermines the multilateral system that the US claims to lead.
I am mostly sure the naval blockade of Cuba ended well before I was born, so there is zero freedom of navigation issue happening currently.
The embargo only applies to US companies, we aren’t stopping other countries from continuing to trade witch Cuba.
I mean, it’s stupid as hell, and will never work, but that’s about the extent of it.
The trade embargo, not the naval blockade. The trade embargo that the UN General Assembly has called illegal multiple times. Like how ships docking into US ports can’t trade with Cuba, or businesses trading with Cuba have to go through massive paperwork hoops to prove that they have zero American shareholders. Or like how Cuba has to import basic medical supplies from the other end of the world.
The embargo has been active since 1960 and has never ended, I’m not sure where you got the idea that it had stopped. And yeah, while it doesn’t directly prevent anyone else from trading with Cuba, it does prohibit anyone who trades with Cuba (or even just enters a Cuban port for maintenance) from trading with the US for the next 180 days, and considering the US is such a major trading partner, that heavily disincentivizes other nations from trading with them, don’t you think?
Either way it’s petty as hell and absolutely still happening, it infringes on Cuba’s right to self determination, and is not what I would call “generally pretty serious about enforcing freedom of navigation” by any stretch of the imagination.
Its amusing how this thread went from the legitimacy of various naval exercises and then shifted to trade policy when that didn’t pan out, which is an entirely different animal, its more of an elephant than a zebra. (It ain’t black and white, definitely grey.)
Trying to get me to defend the Cuba trade embargo ain’t gonna happen, because it really is pointless and harmful. But I like how its conveniently ignored that the rest of the world could easily more than cover what the US refuses to send to Cuba. The US Navy wouldn’t stop them from doing so, because the blockade ended decades ago.
But oddly enough, that doesn’t happen. I wonder why not? Because, oh no, what would the world do without more of those sweet, sweet dollars??? Yeah, never mind the ethics, one can’t forgo profits from trade with the US, so let’s go fuck the Cubans right along with the Americans, and keep our citizens fat and happy with a steady supply of Levis, Big Macs, and movies. But, you know, lets continue paying lip service to how bad it is while making money hand over fist in complicity.
A truly astounding amount of hypocrisy. The US has plenty of hypocrisy to go around too, but at least I am not going to try to defend it.
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From the guardian, a liberal mainstream publication
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/03/cuba-us-embargo-must-end